


the day we died (almost)

by acrobaticblood



Category: Arctic Monkeys, Last Shadow Puppets
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, Existential Crisis, Getting Together, M/M, Robbery, Sorry Not Sorry, alex is a bartender, miles is rich and charming, there's guns but nobody gets shot, this got way out of hand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:34:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24026686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acrobaticblood/pseuds/acrobaticblood
Summary: When Alex woke up this Friday morning he didn't think his life would change forever.
Relationships: Miles Kane/Alex Turner
Comments: 20
Kudos: 42





	the day we died (almost)

**Author's Note:**

> it's been a while since i wrote a milex fic, but this was really fun to do!  
> hope u like it! enjoy!

4 WHO ARE WE IN THE SHADOWS ?

“No need to hide from me now, babe”, Miles smirks mischievously from his side of the bed.

Alex doesn’t exactly see the way that smart mouth is stretched thin and wide, upper lip raised slightly, but he can imagine it alright. He’s had it directed his way enough times in the last six hours to learn the sound of the teasing hint to it.

“Already saw the whole package, didn’t I?” Miles pokes further, as Alex stays intent on pulling the grey cottony cover tighter around his naked waist. He turns around, giving the man he shagged all but five minutes ago a pointed look and a carefully raised eyebrow. He hopes he looks steady and composed. He hopes his cheeks aren’t peony red. They do feel warm, though. Shit.

“It’s different after,” he says.

Miles is on his side, leaning on his pointy elbow, with his head in his palm. The matching silver bed sheet to the cover currently covering Alex is scrunched up in unnatural ways and is casually sprawled over from the half of Miles’ tanned stomach to the midst of his hairy lean thighs. It’s very translucent and suggestive, so Alex looks away from the long and shadowy outline of Miles’ cock behind it and instead moves his gaze higher, but to little avail, for all he sees there are the toned hardy muscles of Miles’ abdomen and his tiny pink nipples, still hard from when Alex licked over them, not a second ago.

Alex shakes his head, like a poor confused cartoon character and finally catches Miles’ eye line. The git’s smiling. He smiles a lot. It’s strange. Not unwelcome per say, but certainly not something Alex is used to getting from one night stands after _the deed is done_ , if you will.

It puzzles him a bit though, so he once again turns around and decides to carry on with the thing he was about to do. The thing. What was the thing again? Yes!

“Where’re yeh goin’?” Miles calls out as Alex heads for the bathroom door. Is that uncertainty he hears?

“Just to piss, Kane,” he says. “Yeh can handle being without me presence for that long, hmm? Yer a big guy,” he adds just to be a nasty. Also, he needs to take the reins for a bit into his own hands, to feel in control of the whole mad-as-a-hatter situation. Miles has been voraciously keeping them for long enough.

Miles murmurs something along the lines of “Depends how long yeh take, babe,” but Alex is already behind the bathroom’s closed doors, before he earns himself another pair of burning pink cheekbones and shaky kneecaps like he’s in middle school again.

He struts over to the sink, ignoring the fact that he wishes for the soreness in his muscles to linger a long while after they’ve said goodbye, just to have something to remind him that tonight was real. He glances at the little squared window to his left, but it’s as dark as the sky can get and he sees nothing. It’s probably, what, like two, or maybe even half past three in the morning at this point. He ought to get some sleep. _Jeez_ , it’s as black as tar under his eyes. He doesn’t look tired though. Only… relaxed and… disheveled? What the fuck has that brute done to his hair? He knows Miles has been unable to stop himself from running his fingers through it a hundred times, but caressing it surely can’t be what’s left it looking this… unruly. He did ask Miles to pull at it at one point though. And Miles did, the slimy git, he enjoyed tugging at those stands almost as much as Alex reveled in the sensations it offered.

Jesus fucking Christ. How did he get himself into this bullshit? He didn’t even like Miles a couple of hours ago and now he’s let the man literally fuck his brains out in some posh hotel room Alex probably can’t afford. So what has changed?

-

1 AT THE BEGINNING THERE WAS A BARTENDER

“Oh shit,” Alex mutters, looking up from washing his hands in the sink behind the bar. He used that apple-scented detergent again and it’s going to dry out and irritate his skin, he just knows it. “Not yeh again.”

“Well, that’s just a terrible way to welcome a customer,” a lad Alex unfortunately knows too well for his liking comments. He’s wearing a comically flashy leopard print button-up, that’s undone way more than it’s supposed to be, Alex decides. He’s not sure how much one’s allowed to unbutton their respective shirt, but Miles here is definitely overstepping it. Before Alex can come up with some stupid rule about golden chains hanging too dangly around one’s neck, he drops his gaze back onto the countertop, picking up one of the wine glasses he’s just washed.

“Yer hardly a customer at this point, Kane,” he huffs, rolling his eyes at the clammy object in his hands. “You hang around this shithole almost as much as I do. And I work here.”

Which is true. He’s not sure why though, Miles tends to spend so much time at this particular pub. He doesn't look like the sort of bloke that drags himself from one shady bar to the other for days on end, looking for an angry fix in his drinks. Actually, he never drinks more than a glass of neat whisky or a singular pint if he’s had a really bad day and is feeling all kinds of groggy. (Why does Alex know this?) He’s definitely not here for the music either. It’s shit. Or maybe he is and his music taste revolves around crappy house bands that do cheap covers of songs you could do well without if you never heard them again. The guitars are never tuned properly either.

Miles doesn’t look like he belongs in a place like this. In fact, Alex is sure that’s because he doesn’t. Everything about his exterior suggests that he’s a high-class fucker, probably spending daddy’s drug dealing money. Okay. That’s maybe taking it a bit too far. But still, his fancy colorful two piece suits and golden watches don’t come from nowhere and even the sharp scented florally cologne his aura oozes smells expensive.

“Usual?” Miles says, adjusting his pretty lapel gemstones.

“I’m afraid it’ll have to wait a bit,” Alex’s mouth stretches into an unpleasantly fake smile all on its own. “I’m sort of in the midst of something.” God, Laura would wrap both of those strong calloused hands around his neck, if she heard him speaking like this to a potential buyer. Good thing that sociopath of an owner isn’t here now.

“Take all the time yeh need, laa,” Miles says as Alex places the dried off glass upside down in the cabinet and takes up the duty of wiping another one with his soggy cloth.

The thing is – Miles isn’t particularly a bad person. Well, he at least doesn’t seem like one, but Alex doesn’t know him long enough to be able to judge him morally. He still hates him though. He just always has. There was something so unsettlingly threatening and arrogant the first time he showed up and truth be told Alex hasn’t been able to shake of the feeling that the git’s just a hypocritical snob of man. And yeah, it’s groundless and lacks actually usable arguments, since Miles hasn’t actually done anything except been a good amount of snarky towards Alex and even that could be just a defensive mechanism or a general reaction to Alex’s coldness and well… snarkiness too.

Maybe it’s just the halo-effect. It probably is. He doesn’t feel like making a conscious effort to change his initial impression of Miles though, so this’ll have to do.

Alex thinks about it all thoroughly whilst drying off the rest of the glasses and then turns his back to Miles to arrange them properly in their place.

A deep baritone shakes him out of it.

“Hi, can I get a dry martini?” some bloke says, placing his forearm on the wooden bar table close to where Miles is sitting.

Alex looks at the tall dark man requesting a martini first and then at Miles, who’s paused fiddling with his watch and is now staring back at Alex with a cocked eyebrow. He seems to have predicted Alex’s actions, long before they even came to Alex’s mind.

“Yes, of course,” Alex says, obnoxiously sweet, still fixed at Miles, but addressing the other man.

Miles retains a sour laugh, his features twisting in one of those ways that says “I knew you’d do that” and Alex turns to make the drink.

He finishes it easily, placing it in front of the tall man with a plain face and takes the money handed to him, internally cussing the tosser for the lack of tip. Jesus, is it that fucking hard to be polite and leave a bit more than you initially planned?

It’s karma for being rude to Miles.

“So others can be attended to right away, but _I_ have to wait?” Miles implies with a harmless smirk. He doesn’t sound offended, even though he probably ought to be. “You detest me _that_ much?”

“I don’t _detest_ yeh,” Alex finds himself insulted at the thought of Miles seeing through him better than he thought was possible. He doesn’t detest him though. “Yer joost not me favorite customer, Kane, I thought we had that established already.”

“Pity, cause yer me favorite bartender,” Miles announces, leaning forward on the table, all of his weight on his forearms, glistening chain swaying slightly on his collarbones.

“See? That’s exactly the type of cocky behavior I can’t stand, the thing that makes me want to finish me shift early when I see yer long legs walk through the door,” Alex leans closer too, placing his hands on the wet countertop and looking straight into the green of Miles’ eyes. They’re very green. Emerald like. Grassy and glassy and reflecting the light in such a way that–

“Yeh fink I have long legs?”

“Jesus Miles, yer completely missin’ the point,” Alex playfully whacks Miles’ arm with the cloth he used for wiping the glasses, but when he tries to pull it away, Miles grips it with his other hand and stares intensely into Alex’s eyes.

He’s called him Miles. Out loud. And he said something about ‘long legs’? What’s his problem? He’s supposed to be hating him, not giving him strange inappropriate compliments and using his first name like they’re some sort of _friends_.

“Pour me that whiskey, love,” Miles says, finally _finally_ letting go of the stupid cloth. “Maybe I’ll have it figured out then.”

Alex says nothing, thankful for the welcome distraction and looks around to grab a glass for him. He’s about to set it in front of Miles and reach for the whiskey bottle, when the dingy bar door gets violently open, the bell above it ringing loudly. A tall man in a black hoodie barges through it.

“This is a robbery! Do not say or do anything, I will fucking shoot you, I’m not fucking around!” he yells, flipping the sign hanging from the door so that the inside reads “OPEN”.

The glass drops to the ground.

-

2 THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM

“I’m gonna put this bag on the floor,” the robber says. The thick black balaclava doesn’t have an opening for his mouth, so the voice comes out slightly muffled, but still menacing and deep. “Y’all are gonna come one by one and empty your pockets into it. Bags too,” he orders.

He’s swaying that fucking gun around like it’s a goddamn toy. Alex’s eyes are fixed intently to it, the noise in his ears almost overpowering the next thing he says. “If anyone does so much as move a finger I’ll shoot her in the head and then the rest of yous,” he grabs some middle aged lady by the elbow harshly, pushing the barrel to her right temple. She’s shaking all over, like Alex is sure he is too, trying to suppress the whimpers getting stuck in her throat while her eyes stay firmly squeezed.

Alex closes his eyes too. Fuck. _Fuck_.

Today wasn’t supposed to go like this. It’s sodding Friday, for God’s sake. He was supposed to finish at eleven sharp and then meet up with Matt and the lads to get pissed out of his mind at some club or other. Not to get shot by some lunatic at a job he hates with a passion. What a dumb way to die. Sure, he didn’t think he was one of those people that got to die tragic melodramatic deaths, but this? Seriously? Getting erased from the face of Earth at the tender age of 27 by this delinquent in a balaclava? He didn’t even take his smoke break yet. Is he seriously going to die without lighting up one last fag?

“You,” the robber points the gun at some old man in a green shirt holding a satchel. “You go first. Let me see whatcha got.”

The man makes a careful step forward, undoing the tiny belt on his satchel and getting a couple of items out. Alex cautiously leans on the bar table to get a better look. It’s a brown skinned wallet and a rusty Nokia. The robber gestures the man to get back to where he stood previously, adjusting his grip on the woman’s arm. She gasps.

Some more people line up, leaving their belongings in the bag on the floor.

Alex tries to sort himself out. He’s not exactly sure what he considers by that. He’s standing here motionless, feet glued to the ground, the cash register mere centimetres away from him. He knows that’s really what this fucker wants. It’s not the wallets and phones and occasional golden earrings. It’s the money inside the cash register that he’s really after and sooner or later he’s going to want to get his gloved hands on it.

Someone has to call the police. Alex’s phone is in the little storage room in the back. It’s not that far away. If he could only get to it, it wouldn’t take long, he only needs a minute or so. If he could just–

“Stop glancing back,” Miles whispers under his breath. How did he even realize Alex was checking out the storage room? He’s not looking at him. Miles is watching some bird empty her jean pockets, along with the rest of hostages. “Go get yer phone and call the cops,” he mutters. “If he figures it out, I’ll stall him for yeh.”

Alex hopes they won’t be in the need to ‘stall’, since he’s not really certain what Miles means by that and even though he doesn’t particularly _like_ the bloke he wouldn’t want to see him get hurt. He thinks he’s estimated the situation well enough though, if he does this with maximum quietness and minimal disturbance he might actually be able to get to his phone without this idiot noticing anything. There’s too many people in the room anyway. And if he does, well… they’ll figure it out along the way.

He whispers “Okay” and is about to leave but then Miles’ hand covers his and squeezes it.

It’s warm and reassuring and shit shit shit maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all because what if Miles really has to come to the rescue and he ends up getting hurt or something even worse. It’s one thing risking his own life, but risking Miles’… it’s a whole another setup. He’s not so sure he wants to be responsible for that. But Miles squeezes his hand harder than, simultaneously offering wordless encouragement and telling him it’s okay, so Alex squeezes back as firm as he can manage and glances forward to see the robber preoccupied with someone’s tote bag and its insides. He crouches down slowly so that the bar table covers his body and starts crawling. It takes him longer than he initially planned, but it’s also louder than he thought it would be, so he’s forced to make small and short movements across the dirty floor. He should’ve mopped it when he got here, now his knees will be all dusty when he gets up. Eventually he gets to the threshold, pushing the door a little and exhaling in relief when it makes none of the terrible screeching sounds.

It’s a tiny barely illuminated room, overflowing with bullshit Laura never has the will to organize, but Alex has spent a good handful of time rummaging through it, so he trusts himself to get around it easy enough in the half-dark. He stops crawling once he’s behind the big tall fridge, secure from the outside view and reaches for his backpack resting on a wooden footstool to his right.

He listens for signs of something gone wrong at the front, but it’s as quiet as it gets. The loudest sound is the hum of this garbage of a refrigerator. 

He finds his phone easily at the bottom of his backpack and is dialing the number in record time.

“911, what’s your emergency?” the officer says after the second ring.

Alex gets baffled for a second, weirded out by the strangeness of the situation he found himself in, but he collects himself quick and blurts out the address, explaining the nature of the emergency in the smallest number of words possible.

The officer says something to him, but he doesn’t really hear it, for he catches a glimpse of the back door. He completely forgot that the storage room has an exit to the alley outside. It’s where the delivery truck pulls up every Monday to leave all the supplies for the week.

He could just walk out. Well not exactly walk out, maybe it would be better to run as fast as possible through it, but still. He could.

Voice on the other end of the phone cable assures him the police has been sent, so Alex hangs up, still unsure whether he should disappear or not. The thing that bothers him, the thing that’s stopping him from doing this and the one that he’s only slightly embarrassed to admit he even ponders upon is at the center of this whole mess. Miles. If that bastard thief figures out the bartender is missing Miles will definitely try to do something about it and will most definitely earn himself a hard time whilst doing so.

So no. Alex can’t leave without notifying Miles about it first and doing that is just too risky. Going to the front, telling him about the back exit and then going into the storage room again is just dumb and dangerous. It’s too much hassle and too much noise and he doesn’t have time for it.

He decides he won’t be escaping after all. He’s not leaving Miles all alone in the vortex of this. He’s suspicious about the moment he started caring so much about Miles’ life, but he guesses one can easily get attached to a person if one sees them every day. And whether he wants to admit it or not hate is a form of emotion towards someone, as real as any other.

He’s about to chuck the device back into his backpack and crawl to the front, when the robber steps over the threshold and points the gun at him.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

-

3 THE VORTEX WILL SWALLOW YOU 

Fight or flight.

This is it. He has to choose one.

There’s no third option.

Except there is.

Fright.

Alex’s feet fail him. In the moment when his limbs are supposed to stay under his control, when they’re supposed to take him out of this messed up situation, one way or another – they fail to carry out their purpose. He freezes. All he finds himself able to accomplish is stare at the hole in the barrel of this guy’s gun and imagine the deadly bullet flying out and through his brain matter, painting the walls pink with it.

It’s the longest second of terrifying eye contact with death and none of that ‘I saw my life flash before my eyes’. Pity. Alex always thought he’d get to at least experience fragmented pieces of life episodes provided by some cosmic form of hypermnesia.

It’s going to happen every second now. There’s no way around it. He’s going to die and there’s nothing he can do about it. The barrel hole stares at him perpetually, so he shuts his eyes and thinks about his mum for the first time in forever. Fuck, she’ll be so sad. He’ll be sad too. Not that he’ll be able to feel anything after he’s gone, but still. He’s sad now for all the things he’ll never get to do. Jeez, why is he being so dramatic?

Another second passes and he peeks out through his left eye, a painful grimace washing over his features.

Is that? It can’t be. But it sort of kind of _is_.

Before he gets the chance to further examine whether he’s right or wrong on seeing Miles’ silhouette creeping up behind the shooter, Miles steps into the room proving that he’s not just a product of Alex’s adrenaline high imagination. He’s holding a half empty Sangria bottle in one second and in the next one swinging it over the intruder’s head. The gun falls to the floor and with it the man holding it. They stare at each other for a while after that, Alex just breathing rapidly and Miles clutching that goddamn bottle of vine, in his skinny as hell pants and that leopard design on his shirt, looking nothing like someone who’s just smacked some robber in the head. 

“That was fucked up, Kane,” Alex says eventually.

“Sort of badass, though, innit?” Miles sends a terrible wink his way, accompanying it with a beautiful white-teethed smile that Alex just has to reciprocate. Miles steps over the unconscious body rather gracefully, coming to stand not even a centimetre away from Alex and suddenly everything freezes again, but not like before. Not in a bad way. Alex’s breath hitches all on its own, some unsaid words getting stuck in his throat and he looks down hoping to find some comfort away from Miles’ scorching gaze. Miles ignores this action completely, either not understanding the meaning behind it or in Alex’s opinion just choosing to act dumb over it. He picks yup a loose strand of hair falling on Alex’s cheek and rubs it gently in between his thumb and forefinger. Alex still doesn’t look up.

“Shall we get the hell out?” Miles asks, tucking the strand behind Alex’s ear. He cups Alex’s jaw with a steady palm and brings his chin up.

And there’s nothing Alex can do, except take Miles’ hand into his own and say “We shall.”

They come out through the back door running like crazy, gripping each other’s hands like their lives depend on it and frankly at this point Alex genuinely feels like they do. He’s not sure what kind of a switch went on in his head, but it’s probably got something to do with the whole ‘near death experience’ he just had. He could be wrong though and it’s really out of the least importance right now. Right now all he wants to think about is the rhythmic puff puff puff of Miles’ breath next to him, the soles of their shoes perfectly lined up as they thump against the road of the alleyway. They come out to the pavement in no time, swerving right down it and somewhere midst the crowd and the jam of people and their chattering voices Alex hears the police sirens.

It’s good, they’re coming. The bastards laying passed out between the boxes in the storage room will be arrested and all those people will soon be free. The cops will probably call up Laura and she’ll be pissed at Alex for fleeing the scene, but he doesn’t fucking care what that torturous bitch has to say to him. Actually, he thinks he’ll quit this stupid job on Monday. He loathes it anyway. It makes him miserable. It’s the least he can do for himself after almost getting killed. He deserves better. He always knew that, but he just never really had enough courage to do something about it, to make a change in his life. This thing that’s happened to him, this thing he just survived – that’s the thing that he needed. He’s not going to waste another second doing something he hates. He’s going to make the most of the little time that he’s got.

Starting with now.

He stops running abruptly, tugging Miles’ hand so that the man stops in his tracks too. They’re in the middle of a rushed street, so many different faces Alex knows nothing about passing them frantically, chasing their own gruesome lives and probably forgetting how fragile they all are. How easily it could all just end. Who knows how much precious time these strangers are wasting and for what? For the fear of things not working out how they planned them to. Fuck that. Yes things go to shit pretty easily, but nothing can go right if you never do anything at all. You have to take matters into your own hands.

Jesus. Miles is beautiful. He hasn’t noticed it before (or maybe he has and he suppressed it), but he definitely does now. He’s sweaty and flushed from running and his hazel eyes are gleaming with… joy? He looks so joyous. It makes something beautiful take up life in Alex’s belly. Their hands are a bit damp, but Alex doesn’t care. He just died and Miles is beautiful and fuck it all, but he wants to kiss him so bad.

He grabs Miles by his ugly orange collar and crashes their mouths together in a way that can only be described as aggressive. Yet, Miles responds instantly. One of his hands grabs Alex’s waist whilst the other one comes to his nape, fisting a handful of nut-brown locks. It’s erratic, but not angry, just ravenous and raw. They’re in the middle of a street for God’s sake, but it doesn’t matter.

Nothing matters, Alex finds himself thinking.

And in a world where by default nothing matters, everything has a chance to.

-

5 HOW MANY DAYS DO WE HAVE LEFT?

“Alex, laa! Are you okay?” A knocking sound shakes Alex out of his thoughts. Miles is outside the bathroom door.

“Yeah. Yes. I’m fine,” Alex watches his double in the mirror move its lips. “I’ll be out in a sec.”

He turns on the tap and splashes his face with ice cold water a couple of times, rubbing his eyelids roughly, until black is all he sees. When he comes up and faces his reflection again there’s tiny droplets of water sliding down his forehead and cheeks. He doesn’t bother wiping them off. He slicks his tangled mess of a hair back as far as it’ll go and once again looks straight into the eyes of a man that tricked death. He doesn’t look different. This morning when he woke up he had the same half-bored half-smug expression on his features as he does now. It’s just the way his face falls. But even though he physically has no differences, he feels all the change has been made inside of him. That constant flicker of memento mori pulsing high in his belly, reminding him how human, how earthly he really is. It’s fucked up and he’s certain that if he started thinking too much about the inevitability of dying he’d be able to actually imagine himself into extinction. Jesus. Even thinking _that_ makes a shiver go through his legs and arms.

It’s not all bad though. He kind of likes it too. It’s sick maybe, being this overly aware of everything, but he doesn’t particularly mind it. It’s a good thing to keep remembering oneself. He probably should have had this epiphany sooner, but alas. Better late than never.

The tricky part however, is not to get too involved in it. To stay sane while being under the crushing knowledge of it all. He thinks the solution to that may be laying in Miles.

He takes one last look in the mirror and then brings the sheet from his waist to his shoulders, wrapping it like a cape. He struggles to get a hand out through the tangled cotton, but once he manages he opens the door and steps into the hotel room he and Miles spent the last three hours in, practicing and mastering all forms of escapism through sex and smoking. He smiles at the thought of it.

“I’m assuming I better not ask what changed so that yeh suddenly look like all weight’s been lifted off yer shoulder blades?” Miles says.

He’s gone back underneath the covers after checking up on Alex and is now balancing an ashtray on his naked chest, while a cigarette stays put between his lips. Alex wants to kiss those lips again. He also wants to smoke again too, so he crosses the distance from the door frame to the foot of the bed and clumsily climbs astride Miles.

He rumples up the fabric around his waist as he does, so that it covers at least some part of him and decides to ignore when Miles laughs at him for it. Instead, he steals the cigarette from him, placing it into his own mouth and inhaling deeply. He throws his head back slightly, the ends of his hair tickling his shoulders and feels Miles’ calloused thumb brush over his Adam’s apple.

They finish the cigarette off after exchanging it for a while and Alex takes the ashtray and puts it on the bedside table. He places both of his palms spread out over Miles’ pecs, relishing in how soft and warm his skin is. They keep quiet for a while. Miles probably doesn’t want to disturb what he imagines to be an important train of thought going through Alex’s head, but the truth is much simpler this time and Alex speaks it loud and clear.

“Nothing has changed and everything has changed.”

Alex doesn’t look up from his hands, but he doesn’t have to. He feels Miles' eyes on him anyway.

“And you’re okay with that?” Miles asks, tucking some hair behind Alex’s ear tenderly, like he did in the storage room. It seems so long ago.

Alex thinks about the question for a bit. About what it means and how he can answer it the truest to himself at this moment in time. He doesn’t have to answer it, he knows that. Miles isn’t the sort of person that would pressure him into saying something just because. But he wants to give him an answer anyway. He wants to reassure Miles just this once, to offer him a piece of that safety and reliability, the one that Miles has given him so freely so many times today. He deserves it.

“Yeah,” Alex nods. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I am.”

He looks up then and finds Miles already looking back at him. It feels good to have that.

Miles takes one of his hands and brings it to his mouth. He kisses Alex’s wrist without breaking eye contact. Without breaking anything. All he does is mend.

**Author's Note:**

> stole the first scene from a tv show called deadly class and i regret nothing
> 
> anyways, hope you liked me projecting my crippling fear of death onto alex  
> what will i not project onto that poor boy at this point huh
> 
> comments and kudos are appreciated!


End file.
